Eric Bana talks Ricky Gervais, motorbikes and being an idiot

Eric Bana is a good looking man. It would be churlish to deny that the Australian-born Hollywood star had some fairly well chosen chromosomes on his side when he entered this world. His alarmingly rugged handsomeness has certainly been of use when playing his more parts such as legendary war hero Hector in Troy and Sergeant First Class “Hoot” in Black Hawk Down. Bana, however, has a secret. He is, in fact, a “dill”, a “dipstick”, a “galah”, as the Australians would say. Eric Bana is an idiot.

To those who reside a little further up than Down Under, it may come as a surprise that Eric Bana made his name in his native Oz as the funny guy. Starting out his career in the sketch comedy series Full Frontal, Bana then went on to put his own name to The Eric Bana Show Live in the late Nineties. Bana is, therefore, simply rolling back the years with his appearance in new Netflix original comedy film Special Correspondents with comedy Ricky Gervais.

The film chronicles the misguided adventures of radio journalist Frank Bonneville (Bana) and his sound technician Ian Finch (Gervais), who miss a flight to Ecuador on a crucial assignment, and then gradually row their way up shit creek having decided to fake their live broadcasts to the station to avoid getting fired.

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“I missed having that much fun,” says Bana “To be honest, I don’t even think I ever had as much fun back when I was doing comedy. I was writing and all that sort of stuff, so I was under a lot more pressure. In this case it was a lot more fun because it was just going to work and having a laugh, all day every day, with one of my comic heroes.”

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Ricky Gervais not only stars in Special Correspondents, but also wrote and directed the film. Bana feel about Gervais’ omnipotence on the project?

“The best thing about working with a comedy performer who’s directing is that he knows that the death of comedy is too much control. He doesn’t make it about the camera, he makes it about the performance. ”

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“He shoots very loose, he keeps the camera moves very, very simple so you’re not waiting around for too long. It makes it more about you guys having fun and coming up with a dynamic that’s real and believable, trying things numerous times, different ways, without stopping filming. It’s like “keep it rolling, keep it rolling” you know?”

Ricky Gervais has spoken about hiring Bana because he thought of him as a “brooding thespian”, only to find out that Bana’s looks deceive. So how does Bana feel about his reputation as the good-looking hero preceding him?

“My background is comedy, so my background was prosthetic make up and wigs and looking like an idiot, so that’s not really how I think of myself at all. My background was being an idiot. That’s all I know. That was what’s fun about this film, getting to be an idiot again.”

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One of Bana’s most lucrative Hollywood departures say saw him take on the role of Bruce Banner in Marvel’s 2003 version of Hulk, where he got a fair amount of practice at being angry. Surprisingly, this made him more than a perfect fit for Gervais’ vision of their Special Correspondents double act.

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“Most of the humour actually came from us just playing things real. He thought it was hilarious if Frank would get as angry as he does…it wasn’t written… that was just something we discovered on set. He was like, ‘the more angry you get and the worse you treat Finch, the funnier it is.’ I was like ‘Awesome!’ So that was something we kind of, that came up with just playing.”

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Special Correspondents is something of a trailblazer in the movie business. With Netflix looking to soon become the largest network in the US, the production of more films to be released exclusively online seems too be an inevitability.

“In a perfect world, would we like people to be sitting in a cinema appreciating our art form? Possibly, but what’s more important is that they actually see it,” says Bana.

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“When you’ve been in the industry a long time and you’ve been through a million different films, and you’ve seen them be released in different ways and either reach an audience or not, you learn that, quite often, people who actually intend to see your work, might not get around to it.”

“When I tell family and friends that this is coming out on Netflix they go ‘Oh cool, I’ll see it’ and it’s like ‘ok, what so you weren’t going to see it if it was at the cinema?’”

“It is great, especially when you’re doing something like this, to think, ‘Wow, millions more people will see this, because it’s on Netflix’”.

Bana believes this will be a boost for slightly more off-piste, but quality work getting both recognition and a wider audience.

“People still write great stuff, it’s just that it’s a lot harder for original material to make its way into cinema… Hopefully it’s a kind of resurgence of original ideas, character based stuff, things that otherwise may have struggled to get a wide cinematic release finding a home. For the artists, for directors, writers, actors, producers even, it’s going to be fantastic.”

Known as Hollywood’s Quiet Australian, Bana resides in his native Melbourne rather that in Los Angeles – he does however, enjoy punctuating his peaceful home life with a V12 engine or two.

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The star is a well-known petrolhead, as demonstrated on his impressive flying lap time recorded on Top Gear in their Star In A Reasonably Priced Car segment, possibly only pipped to the top of the celebrity leaderboard by the wet weather conditions. Bana’s penchant for speed has a home on both two and four wheels – so is he a car or a motorbike man?

“My go-to is always a bike, but clearly I love both. As a mode of transport, definitely a bike. I’ve got a few, I have to admit, so it depends on where I’m going, what I’m doing. But clearly, if the house is burning down, there’s a pecking order of what gets taken out of the garage.”

So Eric Bana is good looking, funny, modest with it, and a family guy with a small fleet of engines that he can ride/drive pretty damn fast. If this is making you feel ever so slightly emasculated, just tell yourself that he’s also an idiot.